Downton Abbey even did its bit for diversity this year, trying its hand at a gay storyline with strained scenes in underlit cupboards ("It may be against God, Barrow, but you've always been good to me, teaching me to read me instructional books and that". "Well, agricultural practices are changing young, Jimmy, and with them the world").
IF one wanted to get a quick reading on the bedrock cultural life of this city, it might pay to skip the sad, strained drinks scene at the Chateau Marmont and the hustle for Jennifer Aniston sightings at Orso and head directly to a scruffy little bar in West Hollywood where a legendarily obscure drag queen holds court every Friday night.
Focusing on the life of a Texan family, Terrence Malick's film is full of strained dinner scenes.
Ms. Kennedy seems a little strained in the scene in which she must smoke, make acerbic cracks and flaunt Mary's glamorously outré lifestyle, but the writing is more to blame than the actress.
But there has never been anything quite like the strained but polite scene yesterday as Senator Jesse Helms sat in the council chamber and warned that the United States would withdraw if the U.N. sought "to impose its presumed authority on the American people without their consent".
The filmmakers' point of view, by contrast, is that the two men are better off as failures — there is a strained, rather sheepish final scene in which the renewal of their friendship after the company's collapse is presented as a moral victory.
Shares of Taiwan-based companies suffered from the island's changing political scene, a strained relationship with China and the worldwide downturn in the computer industry.
The spectacle is great and the song lyrics are a joy ("Are you holding back your fondness/ Due to his unnatural blondness?") Elsa's gaunt, strained appearance at her coronation scene put me pleasantly in mind of Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth, and her supernatural powers are the most impressive since Frozone in The Incredibles.
At the onset, the mood is restrained, tense, and beautifully shot, director Ari Aster carefully setting up much in the first few scenes including the strained family dynamic, Ellen's career as a miniatures artist, and even the appearance of the sigil of Paimon, a deep-cut occult symbol that both Ellen and her mother wear around their necks at the funeral.
At the onset, the mood is restrained, tense, and beautifully shot, director Ari Aster carefully setting up much in the first few scenes including the strained family dynamic, Annie's career as a miniatures artist, and even the appearance of the sigil of Paimon, a deep-cut occult symbol that both Annie and her mother wear around their necks at the funeral.
